Expert insights on accounting, tax, and inventory strategy for e-commerce brands.
Mixing personal funds and ignoring sales tax nexus are the top killers of clean books.
Read GuideImprove decision speed and cash flow with real-time reporting insights.
Read StrategyStep-by-step guide for setting up your bookkeeping the right way.
Start HereAI automates reconciliation, forecasting, and fraud detection.
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Mixing personal funds and ignoring sales tax nexus are the top killers of clean books.
Step-by-step guide for setting up your bookkeeping the right way.
AI automates reconciliation, forecasting, and fraud detection.
Which is best for Shopify? See why high-volume DTC brands are moving away from traditional “connectors” to native AI accounting.
The “Phantom Loss” scenario: Why your P&L might be lying to you about your profitability and how to fix it with automated accruals.
Master your unit economics. Learn the step-by-step formula for allocating freight, duties, and handling back to your COGS.
Learn the common pitfalls of bookkeeping for multi-channel brands.
Why speed is the ultimate competitive advantage in e-commerce.
How machine learning eliminates manual reconciliation errors.
No matter the size of your business, you get a 14-day free trial.
BOOKKEEPING SERVICE FEES
Getting Started
When you subscribe to our service, you’ll pay a monthly (or yearly) bookkeeping fee.
Your monthly bookkeeping fee is based on your projected annualized gross receipts. We calculate this number based on your gross receipts earned in the months available in EcomKeeper during your free trial – i.e., your onboarding month plus the previous 2 months.
For example, if you onboard on June 14, your projected annualized gross receipts will be based on the gross receipts earned from April 1. If your gross receipts for April 1 to June 14 are $75,000, then your monthly fee is based on projected annualized gross receipts of $365,000 (= $75,000 divided by 75 days available in EcomKeeper during the free trial period multiplied by 365 days in a year).
In addition, most customers need a historical catch-up of their books to bring their books fully up to date for the year. In this case, there’s a one-time fee for historical catch-up and 1:1 implementation support. This covers 1:1 onboarding with a dedicated EcomKeeper CPA specialized in ecommerce, who will set up your account, catch up your books for the full year, and tailor everything to your business. This fee can be waived if you join EcomKeeper with fully reconciled books from the start of the year until sign-up.
Check out the FAQ “Can EcomKeeper catch me up if I’m behind with my bookkeeping?” to learn more.
Ongoing Services
After you subscribe, your monthly fee is recalculated at the beginning of each quarter, based on the last 12-month period (LTM), if available. If not, your annualized receipts are based on the longest available period in EcomKeeper.
For example, on September 30, if your actual gross receipts for the last 12 months are $450,000 and are available in EcomKeeper, your monthly fee is based on projected gross receipts of $450,000. If gross receipts for the last 12 months are not available in EcomKeeper, but only available from January 1, we’ll annualize your available data. In other words, if your January 1 until September 30 gross receipts are $300,000, your monthly fee is based on projected annualized gross receipts of $405,000 (= $300K divided by 270 days available in EcomKeeper in the current year multiplied by 365 days in a year).
Since the calculation of the monthly subscription fee is based on a projection, we review it quarterly. If your projected annualized gross receipts go up or down by 10% or more compared to the previous quarter, we’ll adjust your fee to ensure it fairly reflects your income over time. This way, if in one quarter the fee is higher, it will be lowered in the following quarter to reflect your actual income, and vice versa.
ADD-ON SERVICES
You can also add any of our add-on services, including tax services, inventory management with InventoryIQ, or Fractional CFO services.
InventoryIQ is a monthly fee, based on your projected annualized gross receipts determined the same way as your monthly bookkeeping fee. The Fractional CFO and tax services are custom fee quotes based on the specific needs and complexities of your business.
EcomKeeper’s real-time bookkeeping solution includes the technology and app integrations needed to bring your financial data directly from your sources of truth into our ecommerce-tailored accounting software as well as the bookkeeping team to provide the actual bookkeeping services – including reviewing your financials for missed opportunities or unusual transactions and answering any questions you have about your books. For more information about our software, check out our Product page. To learn more about our services and how to create the best financial stack for your business, check out our Services page.
Many of our customers also sell offline to B2B and wholesale marketplaces. With EcomKeeper, you can issue invoices, and auto-match payments through wire or ACH. You can also collect payments online – EcomKeeper syncs with Shopify draft orders and B2B orders, Paypal, and Stripe. If you submit invoices through another system, just let us know!
Nope! No need to pay for any accounting or bookkeeping software, such as QuickBooks. EcomKeeper replaces both your bookkeeper and your accounting software. Your subscription includes access to EcomKeeper’s proprietary software where you can integrate with your banks and credit cards, payment gateways, selling platforms and POS, payroll service, and more, access your financial reports, and view your most critical financial and tax data, in real time in a delightful dashboard.
You can cancel your subscription at any time. No hidden fees. You are the sole owner of your information. If you ever decide to leave EcomKeeper, you can take all your data with you and use it with any other bookkeeping or accounting firm. Super simple.
Note that, the year-end close of your books, which includes all the documentation required by the IRS to make them tax-ready and optimized, is a separate task from the ongoing management of your books. This is done by a separate team fully dedicated to this process. Therefore, if you’re looking to cancel your account after December 31 but still want to complete the year-end close of your books with EcomKeeper, you need to have an active subscription during the book-closing process. Please note that if you are subscribed to the EcomKeeper tax plan, you will also need an active subscription during the tax preparation and filing process.
The timeline for this process depends on the velocity of your feedback and availability to provide the required information. To help you accelerate this process, we prioritize the year-end closing (and tax filing, as relevant) of your books over other accounts, so you’re never paying for any value you aren’t receiving.
Refund policy
Subscription fees: EcomKeeper subscription fees paid monthly or annually are non-refundable.
Historical catch-up and 1:1 implementation fee: We understand that despite the best intentions, life can get hectic, and the timing for completing onboarding might no longer be ideal. If you subscribed but couldn’t find the time or resources to meet with your EcomKeeper CPA and complete onboarding within the first four weeks, you have the option to pause your subscription until you’re ready to proceed. We’ll add you to our waiting list for future onboarding when you’re prepared to start again. Alternatively, we can issue a refund for the catch-up and implementation fee (minus processing fees).
We’re happy to catch up your books from the beginning of the year! We may even be able to provide you with books from previous years, depending on the apps you use for your business.
Your books for the onboarding month and the previous 2 months are free. For example, if you onboard on June 15, your free period covers April 1 – June 15, plus your free trial.
If you’d like to include earlier months, there’s an additional catch-up and implementation fee based on your monthly subscription price for each month that needs to be caught up. In other words, if you onboard with EcomKeeper on June 15, your April, May, and most of June books are free! If you also want January to March included (recommended), you’ll pay the one-time historical catch-up and 1:1 implementation fee for those months.
We often run special promotions with discounts on catch-up services, so if you have several months to catch up, feel free to chat with us before getting started.
Important tip: To avoid year-end challenges and major tax headaches, it’s strongly recommended to catch up your books in EcomKeeper from January 1. Otherwise, you may end up spending tax season dealing with multiple data sources, inconsistencies, and reconciliation gaps from your apps and banks. Starting fresh ensures a smooth transition and fully accurate books going forward.
As part of EcomKeeper’s tax package, we’ll introduce you to an experienced tax CPA in our network to work with you and determine your specific scope based on your needs.
Generally, tax packages with our partners can include:
1. Your business’s federal income tax return
2. Your business’s State income tax return(s),
3. Where relevant, international tax forms 5472, 5471, 1042-S, etc., and non-standard tax forms such as Form 2553, and individual tax return filing,
4. Tax optimization. They’ll work to get you all the tax benefits and deductions available, and
5. Tax consultancy & planning. They can assist you with structuring your business affairs in the most tax-efficient manner given your personal objectives covering business, personal and estate tax implications.
Our fees are pretty straightforward, but when you have non-straightforward activities, we may need to charge a bit more to cover the expert time and effort needed to get things right.
Here are some examples of when additional fees may apply:
1. An entity conversion that requires closing a short tax year.
2. Acquisition of an activity, business, or company that requires a purchase price allocation.
3. Disposition or sale of an activity, business, or company.
The exact fee depends on the complexity of the work. We’ll always provide a custom quote before starting, but as a general guideline, additional fees usually range from 2–4 times your monthly subscription.
No, you don’t need a Fractional CFO to work with EcomKeeper.
As your brand grows, you may choose to bring one on or you can ask us for an intro to one of the expert ecommerce-focused Fractional CFO partners to review your financials monthly and provide practical, strategic advice to accelerate your growth. You can read more about our services and how many brands set up their financial stack here.
There are many benefits to using InventoryIQ as your inventory management system, including PO and vendor management, real-time landed cost updates, inventory tracking across multiple SKUs and warehouses, automated COGS updates in your P&L and automated vendor balance and inventory updates in your Balance Sheet. InventoryIQ works seamlessly with EcomKeeper’s ecommerce accounting service to give you complete financial visibility!
Yes! With InventoryIQ, you can see real-time updates on your stock units on-hand across multiple SKUs and warehouses which includes tracking sales across multiple channels like Shopify or Amazon. For specific sales channels, we may need some input on quantities sold, product giveaways, or dead inventory to create your automatic COGS updates.
Nope! EcomKeeper’s ecommerce accounting service provides real-time financial visibility whether you are subscribed to our Core plan for accounting or to our Plus plan which includes both accounting and inventory management with InventoryIQ. However, if you feel you don’t have full, real-time time control over your inventory costs with your current setup, we highly recommend trying out InventoryIQ.
The benefits of using InventoryIQ is that you get more accurate and automated COGS ties into your overall financials, giving you financial visibility you’ve never had before.
Yes! InventoryIQ allows you to track individual components needed to manufacture a product or individual products needed to create bundles. You have the functionality to easily manage your recipes (bill of materials) and create manual or on-demand assemblies to enhance your inventory management capabilities.
InventoryIQ is the first real-time inventory management system built right into an ecommerce accounting software! You don’t need Quickbooks, Xero, Netsuite, or any other accounting system. InventoryIQ and EcomKeeper’s real-time accounting are the ultimate pairing to give you the financial visibility you need.
InventoryIQ is built for brands that need real-time visibility and tracking of their inventory and COGS but find enterprise software to be complete overkill and too expensive for their needs.
Our customers include ecommerce, DTC, retail, and multichannel brands that range from mid 6-figure to high 8-figure businesses.
Unlike QuickBooks, Xero, or NetSuite, which are all accounting DIY software/ ERPs, EcomKeeper’s Level 1 and Level 2 bookkeeping plans both include a full-service bookkeeping solution that replaces your accounting software, bookkeeper, app integrations, and even your inventory spreadsheets. If you choose EcomKeeper Level 2, we also cover other aspects of running your back-office.
While DIY software like QuickBooks and Xero require a separate bookkeeper for accuracy and tax readiness, EcomKeeper is a white-glove service that takes full responsibility for your books and year-end tax closure. Our team of ecommerce accounting experts continuously reviews and supervises your books, ensuring unmatched accuracy at a fraction of the cost of QBO and a bookkeeper.
EcomKeeper serves as your single, reliable source of truth for your finances, offering 100% accuracy.
QBO is simply not designed for online brands, while EcomKeeper is. We offer 100% accuracy as our data is consistently validated against your apps’ own data and your banks. EcomKeeper runs numerous reconciliation processes in the background, including 3-way order-payout-bank reconciliation, independent app validations, ‘money-in-transit’ reconciliation, timing difference mitigation, FX adjustments, inventory reconciliation, interest recognition, and full revenue reconciliation . It would take hours for a bookkeeper to manage this manually, and even a highly skilled bookkeeper may still make numerous errors, inaccuracies, and omissions due to the challenges of managing the volume, dependencies, and complexities of the data.
EcomKeeper’s real-time bookkeeping solution includes the technology and app integrations needed to bring your financial data directly from your sources of truth into our ecommerce-tailored accounting software as well as the bookkeeping team to provide the actual bookkeeping services – including reviewing your financials for missed opportunities or unusual transactions and answering any questions you have about your books. For more information about our software, check out our Product page. To learn more about our services and how to create the best financial stack for your business, check out our Services page.
Many of our customers also sell offline to B2B and wholesale marketplaces. With EcomKeeper, you can issue invoices, and auto-match payments through wire or ACH. You can also collect payments online – EcomKeeper syncs with Shopify draft orders and B2B orders, Paypal, and Stripe. If you submit invoices through another system, just let us know!
We’re happy to catch up your books from the beginning of the year! We may even be able to provide you with books from previous years, depending on the apps you use for your business.
Your books for the onboarding month and the previous 2 months are free. For example, if you onboard on June 15, your free period covers April 1 – June 15, plus your free trial.
If you’d like to include earlier months, there’s an additional catch-up and implementation fee based on your monthly subscription price for each month that needs to be caught up. In other words, if you onboard with EcomKeeper on June 15, your April, May, and most of June books are free! If you also want January to March included (recommended), you’ll pay the one-time historical catch-up and 1:1 implementation fee for those months.
We often run special promotions with discounts on catch-up services, so if you have several months to catch up, feel free to chat with us before getting started.
Important tip: To avoid year-end challenges and major tax headaches, it’s strongly recommended to catch up your books in EcomKeeper from January 1. Otherwise, you may end up spending tax season dealing with multiple data sources, inconsistencies, and reconciliation gaps from your apps and banks. Starting fresh ensures a smooth transition and fully accurate books going forward.
As part of EcomKeeper’s tax package, we’ll introduce you to an experienced tax CPA in our network to work with you and determine your specific scope based on your needs.
Generally, tax packages with our partners can include:
1. Your business’s federal income tax return
2. Your business’s State income tax return(s),
3. Where relevant, international tax forms 5472, 5471, 1042-S, etc., and non-standard tax forms such as Form 2553, and individual tax return filing,
4. Tax optimization. They’ll work to get you all the tax benefits and deductions available, and
5. Tax consultancy & planning. They can assist you with structuring your business affairs in the most tax-efficient manner given your personal objectives covering business, personal and estate tax implications.
Yes! Whether you use the Level 1 or Level 2 plans, EcomKeeper works with you to ensure you have completely accurate financials, including the inventory and COGS calculations.
We offer 3 methods of COGS tracking so you can choose which best works for your business: (1) purchase based works for brands with little inventory (usually less than $3,000 a month), like dropshippers, (2) sales based works for brands with larger inventory values that track their COGS in an external software, like an ERP or inventory management software, and (3) unit based is for brands with larger inventory values that need a better process to track their COGS and want to use EcomKeeper’s native inventory management system. The first 2 methods are available at no extra cost. The unit based method is available as part of our InventoryIQ add-on service.
No, you don’t need a Fractional CFO to work with EcomKeeper.
As your brand grows, you may choose to bring one on or you can ask us for an intro to one of the expert ecommerce-focused Fractional CFO partners to review your financials monthly and provide practical, strategic advice to accelerate your growth. You can read more about our services and how many brands set up their financial stack here.
By Financialsai Team • 5 min read
E-commerce accounting is a different beast than traditional retail. High transaction volumes, multiple payment gateways, and inventory complexities make it easy to make mistakes. Here are the top 5 we see and how to fix them.
This is the cardinal sin of small business. When you use your business card for groceries or your personal card for inventory, you create a nightmare for reconciliation. Solution: Open a dedicated business bank account immediately.
Unlike a physical store, e-commerce stores can trigger tax obligations (nexus) in states where they don’t have a physical presence, simply by selling enough volume there. Solution: Use tools like Avalara or TaxJar integrated with your books.
If Shopify deposits $97 into your account for a $100 sale (deducting a $3 fee), and you record $97 as revenue, your books are wrong. You understate revenue and understate expenses. Solution: Always record the gross sale amount and book fees separately.
Expensing all inventory the moment you buy it is “Cash Basis” thinking, but it distorts your profitability. You should only expense inventory (COGS) when it is sold. Solution: Track inventory as an asset.
Manual entry inevitably leads to typos and lost hours. Solution: Automate. Use Financialsai to sync data directly from your sales channels.
By Financialsai Team • 5 min read
In the fast-paced world of online retail, waiting 20 days after the month ends to see your P&L is like driving a car while looking only in the rearview mirror. Real-time reporting changes the game.
Real-time data lets you see exactly how much cash is tied up in inventory versus how much is available for marketing. You can spot cash crunches weeks before they happen.
Did that influencer campaign yesterday actually drive profit, or just revenue? With real-time COGS calculation, you can see the true margin of your campaigns instantly and pivot ad spend accordingly.
Knowing your exact stock levels and sell-through rates in real-time prevents the dreaded “Out of Stock” banner, ensuring you never miss a sale during peak trends.
Financialsai provides dashboards that update every time a sale is made, not just when your accountant gets around to it.
By Financialsai Team • 5 min read
Congratulations on your store! Now, let’s keep it legal and profitable. Here is a simple 4-step framework for new owners.
We mentioned this in our “Mistakes” article, but it bears repeating. Open a business checking account and a business credit card. Run ALL expenses through these.
Don’t use Excel. It doesn’t scale. Use cloud accounting software (like Xero or QuickBooks) or an automated platform like Financialsai that connects directly to Shopify.
Your profit isn’t (Sales – Expenses). It is (Sales – COGS – Expenses). You need to know exactly how much each unit costs you to land at your warehouse (product cost + shipping + duties).
At the end of every month, match your bank statement balance to your accounting software balance. If they don’t match, you’re missing data. Find it before it piles up.
By Financialsai Team • 5 min read
Artificial Intelligence isn’t just for writing emails or generating images. It is revolutionizing the tedious, error-prone world of accounting.
Humans get tired. AI doesn’t. AI can categorize thousands of transactions in seconds without a single typo, ensuring your books are cleaner than ever before.
AI algorithms can analyze patterns in your spending and income. If a transaction looks unusual or breaks a historical pattern, the system can flag it for review instantly, potentially saving you thousands in fraud losses.
Traditional accounting looks backward. AI looks forward. By analyzing seasonality and growth trends, AI can predict cash flow gaps months in advance, allowing you to secure financing before you’re desperate.
At Financialsai, we use these exact tools to give small business owners the power of a Fortune 500 finance department.
